The confidence of youth often clashes with the pain and shame of mental illness.

It keeps a student quiet and lonely and pretending too long that everything is fine.

Too many college students wait until it’s all too much, never once calling on counseling services or sharing the depth of their hopelessness.

They cope poorly. They leave school.

They suffer, feeling isolated and alone.

Having worked on college campuses as a mental health counselor, I have seen the under-utilizaiton of on-campus mental health centers. Whether it is the result of the students not knowing the services are available or the fact that many students feel the need to handle their problems in secret or alone, they are not seeking the help they desperately need.

Yet, the numbers published in a recent survey conducted by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors reveal just how common mental health problems are on college campuses:

95% of college counseling center directors surveyed said increasing “significant psychological problems” among students is a growing concern on their campuses.

75% of lifetime cases of mental health conditions present before age 24.

1 in 4 people between 18 and 24 have a diagnosable mental illness.

Over 25% of college students have been diagnosed or treated for mental health issues during the previous year.

Nearly 42% of college students cite anxiety as the most difficult mental health obstacle, followed by depression at just under 35%, and relationship concerns at about 36%.

64% of college students who drop out for mental health reasons leave primarily due to depression, bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Depression and anxiety impacted academic performance negatively for 31% and 50% of surveyed college students, respectively.

College life entails a host of adjustments, transitions and relationships to be navigated. The pressures of young adulthood come with unique challenges. Students don’t have to feel like self-medicating, isolating or self-harming are the only ways to deal.

How can you or a student you know learn how to cope, thrive, and get the education and experiences you hope for?

Find help, get help, feel better.

School resources. Utilize campus clinics and counseling offices for help managing relationship conflicts, college and academic issues.

Community resources.Consider off-campus counselors if you have long-term therapy needs or require someone to prescribe and monitor medication.

Prep for health and success.

Think ahead about living, scheduling and social arrangements that will be the most beneficial to you during hard times.

Reduce academic stress with strong time-management skills. Use academic services, study groups, and tutors to ease your workload. Make sure you plan well enough to avoid the stress of a backlog or assignment pile-up.

List symptoms, seasons and life events that appear to accompany your low moods; anticipate and prepare for their impact on your learning.

Maintain documentation you may need to share with your college regarding your health.

It rains so much suspicion, doubt, and blame that you can barely see each other.

It shoots lightning bolts of anger, resentment, and guilt so strong that you and your partner are sent scrambling from each other, convinced that that there’s no way to weather the storm.

Your relationship is battered, ravaged.

Is there any way it can it survive?

Will attempts to rebuild be rewarded with clearing skies?

The process of recovery following an affair is sometimes overcast, stormy, and uncomfortable. Still, love, trust and connection can be salvaged and rebuilt.

Consider 3 key factors that help determine whether you can ride out the storm:

1. You make the commitment. Do you truly want to survive–together?

Is the love still there? If you recognize that your relationship is still yours to shield or set free, there is hope. You can put aside the idea that only one of you gets out of the rain and decide that your life together is worth the work.

You must commit. Decide to feel the pain, face reality, share your hurts, tell the truth, and seek change. Do whatever it takes to recover your connection and repair the damage. Though it may be scary, humbling, and overwhelming, if you are willing to push through, you can hold on and come through the infidelity storm together.

2. You embrace the work. Will you aggressively strive toward restoration?

Outside help is vital. You must be more than just willing; you must immediately and actively work to survive an affair. Will you enlist the help of an experienced counselor and key supporters to act as your marriage support team? Introducing better communication tools, a counselor can help you manage conflicts and misunderstanding. Friends and family can help brace your marriage and keep it strong.

Will you rebuild your marriages walls? Successful survival means protecting yourself from the initial storm, anticipating resurging problems, and working to clear out the damage so that you are stronger and better protected. You and your partner can become skilled survivors instead of victims of an affair’s aftermath.

3. You want better. Are you prepared to help your marriage thrive and transform?

Forgiveness is the key. It is foundational for ultimately putting the affair in the past to move forward. Can you let the storm pass? The goal is to love again, not use the affair as leverage, a defense, or a weapon against the other. It does no good to weather the affair to then build new storms of retaliation, alienation, or never-ending probation. Recovery depends on being able to recognize and welcome a brighter day.

Will you invest in a “new,” reinforced marriage? This is no time for carelessness. After a storm, you may realize that the old way of living wasn’t strong enough to withstand the weather. You might invest in a new door, repair the roof, or clear views through the windows to better see what’s coming. You fortify the best of what you have and discard what didn’t protect you well. Your marriage can survive and thrive if you diligently and mutually invest kindness, respect, compassion, and support.

You and your partner determine the course of your future relationship. Dig in. Get the help you need. If you want it, work to recover it and resolve to strengthen it. Your marriage can make it through this storm.

Survive as a committed couple, strive with dedicated support, and thrive by constructively moving forward. As a relationship therapist, I can help you decide whether moving forward is the right choice for you; and if so, just how you do that. You can call me or go online to make an appointmenttoday!